The Official Compline Line of Succession (Updated for Fall 2024)

Wyoming Catholic College students are serious about following tradition. So when it comes to the traditional 1962 Latin Compline sung each night at the college, even details like who gets to officiate and who gets to be the lector matter. It’s all part of the rubrics–and local custom. It’s a very formal process that is always followed, with a full, perfect line of succession of who gets to be the officiant, the number one position, and who gets to be the lector, the second highest, with both together acting as the cantors according to the local ceremonial customs of celebration. The only two exceptions to the following table of the current official WCC Compline line of succession are when a higher-ranking person arrives late and if Luca is sick. Compline must always start on time at exactly 7:29 PM on Sunday night and 8:31 PM on all other nights. Should a higher ranking person not be present exactly on time to light the candles, a lower ranking person may seize control of the ceremonial for the entire prayer, even if a higher ranking person is just about to enter.

Note that the second highest ranking person in attendance, who takes the role of lector, is also in charge of distributing and collecting the Compline books as part of the formal final ceremony of the rite, the gathering of the books.

The graduation of the Class of 2024 caused the largest shake-up in how Compline was prayed at WCC and in the line of succession, members of that class long having held general primacy. We covered the 2023-2024 line of succession here, and the Fall 2024 line of succession is still a little shaky, but here is how IIT expert agents think things are shaking out this season.

Certain modernist miscreants attempted to impose a modernist change in custom at the beginning of the year after hymnal racks were installed in all pews. Rather than the traditional manner of the Compline books being placed at the back of the chapel, and the officiant bringing stacks forward to the two front pews for all in attendance, the books were temporarily placed in the racks in each pew. This led to all sorts of problems as would be expected with all rapid changes contrary to tradition, including books going missing, attendees spreading out throughout the chapel rather than praying together, as well as a loss of the traditional post-Compline gathering of the books ceremony, and so forth, but local pressure was able to overcome the modernists and tradition has returned for now.

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